A bone-in pork loin can become many things. Cut the ribs away from the loin, and you’ll have baby back ribs and a boneless pork loin. Slice the loin between each bone, and you’ll get pork chops, but leave it together and you’ll get a big barbecue payoff with incredibly little effort.
When approaching the process for a smoked pork loin, I had to call Roy Perez of Kreuz Market, in Lockhart. The longtime pitmaster at one of Texas’s oldest barbecue joints has been smoking this cut since he started there, and this is where I first fell in love with it. Much like with a slice of brisket, the seasoning and smoke flavor is concentrated around the outer edges, but at Kreuz, the saltiness goes deep into each cut. Perez said that’s because “everything that we sell here, we season it the night before.” Their mix of salt, black pepper, and cayenne is like a dry brine for all of their barbecue, which goes on the pit in the morning.
As for the cooking, it couldn’t be more simple. Leave the meat bone-side down in the smoker for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Kreuz Market’s pits run pretty hot, but Perez keeps the pork loins toward the center of the pit where it’s cooler. To check doneness, he said to look for the meat to pull back from the rib bones, leaving the bones exposed (I use a meat thermometer).
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At home, I salted a bone-in pork loin from Central Market and left it uncovered in the refrigerator overnight (this recipe. will also work fine if you season the meat just before smoking). I applied the rest of the seasoning just before it went into the smoker the following day. By then, the surface of the meat was pretty dry, so I used a yellow mustard slather to allow the rub to stick more easily. For the rub, just make sure it’s low in salt if you salted the meat the day prior.
I hung the pork loin bone side down in a charcoal-fired Pit Barrel Cooker (with some oak wood chips added for smoke) that was humming along between 270 and 290 degrees. Any offset smoker will also work well. I left myself two hours for cooking, but checked the internal temp at the 90-minute mark. It had already reached 140, which was surprisingly fast, but a good target for doneness. I quickly finished the sides for a dinner that was about a half hour earlier than expected, and let the meat rest for 20 minutes. The meat was incredibly juicy when I sliced into it, but all the pink was gone. (Remove it at 135 internal if you’d like a more rosy interior.) It was salty throughout, with a bold smokiness on the exterior, and I was able to snag both of the end cut chops, my favorite, for myself.
Bone-in Pork Loin
1 Bone-in pork loin roast (at least four bones’ worth) Kosher salt Yellow mustard Low-salt barbecue rub
The night before cooking, apply Kosher salt liberally to all surfaces of the pork loin. Use 1.5 percent of the weight of the meat to determine your salt amount if unsure. Let the salted meat sit uncovered in the refrigerator for 8 to 24 hours.
Prepare a smoker at 275 degrees. While heating the smoker, remove the. pork loin from the refrigerator and cover with a thin coating of yellow mustard. Apply barbecue rub to cover all surfaces, and place into the pre-heated smoker. Smoke for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until internal temperature of the pork is 140 degrees. Rest for 20 minutes and slice between each bone to serve.
Instructions: Season the meat with salt, pepper, and cumin and place in a large, nonreactive bowl.
Cut open the dried chiles with scissors and remove the seeds and stems. Fry the dried chiles with a small amount of oil in a frying pan for 2-3 minutes over medium heat, stirring constantly so they don’t burn. Add the chiles to a small pot with boiling water (about 2 cups) for about 10 minutes, or until softened.
In the same frying pan where you fried the chiles, add 1 tablespoon of oil and cook the onions and tomatoes over medium heat until they are browned. Add the garlic, peppercorns, bay leaves, cinnamon stick and all of the remaining spices except for the ground cumin and ginger. Continue cooking for about 5 minutes, stirring often.
To a blender, add the chiles (including the water), the ingredients from the previous step, and the ginger, cumin, apple cider vinegar and water and blend until smooth. It will still be pretty thick, but that is fine.
Strain and pour the sauce over the meat in the bowl and cover. You will want to marinate it in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours or overnight.
Place the meat and marinade in a large oven-safe dish or dutch oven, covered, and cook in the oven at 300 degrees for 3 hours, or until the meat is easy to shred. (You can also cook the dish for 3 hours on the stove over medium heat or on a grill at 300 degrees, with the lid closed.)
Remove the meat and shred it. You can then serve it over the soup made from the sauce that the meat cooked in. To make make tacos, warm corn tortillas, the dunk each one in the sauce, allowing the excess to drip off, or paint with a brush. Then add the meat and serve the with bowls of the broth, cilantro, chopped onions, lime wedges and salsa.
Sure, you can use that ground beef to make a classic burger, but if you’re not in the mood for one, we’ve got you covered. Check out these recipes from our Recipe Finder to find a ground beef recipe that’s right for you.
Jamaican-Spiced Beef Collard Wraps, above. Spiced beef — similar to what you’ll find inside a much beloved Jamaican beef patty — gets tucked into blanched collards with rice for a tasty lunch that can be easily reheated.
Cincinnati Chili Over Spaghetti Squash. When spaghetti squash hit the market this fall, you’ll be ready with this warmly spiced Cincinnati-style chili to spoon on top.
Beef and Mushroom Sloppy Joes. Now here’s a sloppy Joe that won’t remind you of school lunches of yore. This one harnesses the umami flavor of mushrooms with just a touch of molasses for sweetness.
(Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post).
Enchiladas With Chili Gravy. It may be hot outside now, but the cold snap is coming. This is the cozy dish you’ll want for upcoming fall days.
Birria originated in Guadalajara, Mexico, and has a history that dates back more than 150 years. But it’s one of the hottest restaurant trends in San Antonio and across the state, with birria photos dominating social media.
Birria essentially is a stew loaded with a laundry list of spices and meat — traditionally lamb, goat or beef — that is slowly cooked in sauce. It’s a close cousin to Texas chili.
The meat often is removed, shredded and used in tacos, quesadillas or burritos and served with a bowl of the tasty cooking broth for dunking the taco, like a French dip or Chicago-style Italian beef sandwich.
Four years ago, Juan and Guadalupe Garcia decided to open Birriería Estilo Jalisco, a quaint corner restaurant inside a San Antonio strip center off Nacogdoches Road that features birria. There’s no way to prove it, but Juan believes his family restaurant may have been the first in the area to offer the dish.
The techniques at Birriería Estilo Jalisco are derived from recipes that have been in Guadalupe’s family for generations.
“The story of our birria goes back to my wife’s great-grandfather,” Juan Garcia said. “When we opened the restaurant, we knew we were bringing something new to the city.”
Garcia said the dish is now so popular that business has been on the increase, even during the COVID-19 pandemic.
El Remedio, a food truck at 2924 Culebra Road on the West Side, recently added birria, including a grilled cheese option. Demand has been so great, customers are instructed to order in advance of service dates.
Chef Ernie Bradley (Kuriya @ Cherrity Bar) and business partner David Malley are in the process of developing their new East Side restaurant, La Tienda de la Birria, which they hope to open this fall. They got the idea in January after multiple excursions to the Guadalajara area to learn the cooking techniques.
“It’s a really interesting meal that has all sorts of communal elements,” Bradley said. “It’s no secret that I enjoy soup. Most of my recipes will have four or five ingredients, and with the birria, the process involves some of the longest recipe lists I’ve ever seen.”
The sauce for birria can require from 15 to 20 ingredients. Chiles, such as guajillo, chipotle and ancho, are key to the process, as are spices like cumin, oregano, ginger, cloves, cinnamon and thyme. Apple cider vinegar is also added to the mix, as well as onion, garlic and tomatoes.
There’s nothing wrong with letting the kitchen pros do the work for you, but cooking it at home is not difficult — it’s just a lengthy process.
Start with lean cuts of beef (shank, chuck or loin) and season them liberally with salt, pepper and cumin like you would with a dry rub on any other piece of meat. There’s no need to chop it into smaller pieces, because it should be so tender after the cooking process that you can shred it with your hands.
Remove the seeds from the chiles, give them a quick sizzle on the stovetop, and transfer them to a small pot of boiling water. Slice a large white onion and tomatoes, and give them a good browning before adding the garlic and spices.
Then, transfer the mixture for the sauce into a blender and give it a whirl until it has the texture of a thick salsa. Pour the mixture over the meat in an oven-safe pot or pan and marinate in the refrigerator overnight if possible, or at least four hours.
The cooking process is easy: Just let the meat braise on the stove, in the oven or on the grill for about three hours. The thickened sauce will break down into a more watery broth, and the meat will tenderize.
After that, it’s up to you to do with it what you want. Birria is traditionally served with chopped cilantro, onion, lime wedges and corn tortillas, with the tortillas given a quick sauce bath before they’re assembled into a taco or quesadilla. The end result showcases each and every one of the ingredients, and — bonus! — your kitchen will smell heavenly.
It was on a Saturday not long ago. About 12 noon or so. I was in company with me and myself.
I have come to cherish these hours on Saturday’s. Lunch is only served Monday through Friday, and cooking classes are held on the second and third Saturday of each month.
So the remaining days on the calendar are the time where I get to do my “magic.” The only disturbance is phone calls for reservations for the upcoming dinner hour or days to come.
And if I’m real lucky, then Pandora decided to massage me with some good old jazz tunes.
Anyway, the prep list that Oscar had written the night before, after a busy Friday, was all about cutting. I mean lot’s of cutting. Spending the next hours using all knife skills that had been implemented in me from the first day ever worked in a kitchen, although “back then” time was spent on peeling garlic cloves, carrots, potatoes, ingredients always prepped by the new apprentices. And I was one of them. Teachings of what knife to use was taught pretty much through “just do it.” In other words, don’t use a 10 inch chef knife to peel garlic, use a paring knife. A little common sense can get you far in life.
I must say though that my favorite is a good sharp 8 inch chef’s knife. And then of course with a little delegation, garlic will be peeled, but not by me…
But my thoughts brought me back 30 something years ago. And I was thinking about how important tools are for pretty much any trade. Mention a profession and a qualified professional will tell you their needs to perform their skill.
In my world “sharp tools” are important. Hey… sounds like a surgeon… but important rules never the less, in order to achieve the ultimate results in cutting meats, fish, vegetables, etc.
Of course, back then today’s distractions such as smart phones didn’t exist, so being good at something was important.
And for some odd reason good and bad, succeeding or failing was measured in beer… That’s right, alcoholic beverages. Beer was the currency paid or received when important tasks needed to be completed.
I once witnessed a fellow apprentice pay 17 beer bottles to an older apprentice, because the skin of a turkey was penetrated 17 times, while deboning the bird for stuffing, for next evenings dinner party. I must admit that I had to pay a few beers myself, until the obvious occurred. This is bad business, watch where your knife is going. I like to say to new arrivals in my kitchen… “Who is in charge, you or the food?”
The Swordfish, as soon as it would arrive needed to be portioned, along with the fresh salmon from the Faroe Islands that we have come to be known for. But also New York strip loins, whole chickens, Beef Tenderloin were on the “to do” list.
And it was when I arrived to the Beef Tenderloin, I was preparing to be roasted whole (Chateau Briand) that I thought about Boeuf Saute Stroganoff.
A dish that many know of, but might not have tasted done properly. It is a dish that was very respected in my apprentice years, not just a beef stew, but sautéed beef tenderloin.
History takes us to Russia in 1861 where a classic cook book mentions the dish, the recipe calls for mustard to be used in the cooking process as a taste factor. Onions and mushrooms are not a part of the dish as we know it today, and as I wrote in my version of Boeuf Sauté Stroganoff.
Those two ingredients are introduced around 1912.
But Count Stroganoff (a famous Russian general) is the name behind the dish. He invented the dish for a competition. And since then, the dish has become very popular world wide.
Boeuf Saute Stroganoff
2 lbs of beef tenderloin tips, cut into strips (1 inch x 1/8 inch)
2 cups of fresh tomato meat, relieved from skin and seeds
6 cups of sliced Cremini mushrooms
3 cups of sliced shallots
6 cups intense veal stock
1 cup Crème Fraiche
A generous splash of cognac
1/2 bunch parsley, roughly chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil for sautéing
1 large frying pan is needed.
This is a very fast dish to finish once all the ingredients have been gathered. All components are cooked individually first and then combined in the end.
It is very important NOT to overcook the tenderloin. A happy MR would be optimal as the dish will continue to “cook” while being served. Turn on your exhaust fan in your kitchen.
Heat the pan on the stove until very hot, divide the beef tenderloin tips into 3 batches, season each one with salt and pepper right before cooking. Not all together, one at a time.
Add olive oil to the hot pan and then with a slotted spoon arrange the meat on top of the pan. Brown the meat “fast and furious” about 10 seconds.
Remove the meat with the slotted spoon back into the “seasoning dish.” Repeat this process with the last two batches of meat.
Add a little more olive oil to the pan, if needed. Add the shallots and sauté until golden brown over medium to high heat, with a slotted spoon.
Remove onions from pan back into dish where first held.
Add a splash of olive oil to the pan. Add the mushrooms and sauté until golden brown as well.
Deglaze the pan with the cognac. Remove mushrooms back into dish where first held.
Next add the veal stock to the pan, reduce the 6 cups of stock into 3 cups (1/2) Add the mushrooms, shallots and the tomato meat back into the pan. Bring dish to a boil…. Season with salt and pepper to taste if needed.
Add the meat along with the Crème Fraiche (DO NOT) boil the dish after meat and Crème Fraiche is added.
Ladle the Boeuf Saute Stroganoff into a serving dish, sprinkle with fresh chopped parsley and serve immediately.
Auguste Escoffier suggested to sprinkle the dish with bread croutons as well, a good idea in my opinion, it will absorb some of the sauce, and become “candy like” croutons.
Traditionally, mostly eaten with buttered pasta noodles, mashed potatoes or fried potato strips.
I suggest a full bodied glass of Pinot Noir to accompany your meal.
NEW ORLEANS — A New Orleans City Council member is apologizing for describing a preference among residents of part of her predominantly Black district for “greasy fried chicken” restaurants, comments she made while discussing the district's slow business recovery 15 years after Hurricane Katrina.
The Times-Picayune ' New Orleans Advocate reports Councilmember Cyndi Nguyen said her comments about constituents in the Lower 9th Ward in an earlier story in the newspaper were taken out of context.
“In the context they were presented, my example of residents enjoying fried chicken and its abundance in the area came off as insensitive, and for that, I apologize,” she said in a statement Sunday to area residents.
Nguyen’s apology came shortly after state Rep. Jason Hughes, a New Orleans Democrat whose district overlaps with Nguyen's, wrote in an open letter on Sunday that he was “shocked, appalled, and insulted” at Nguyen’s words.
Nguyen, who was elected in 2017, represents the overwhelmingly Black district. She is the first council member from her eastern New Orleans district since 1985 who is not Black.
The comments came during a driving tour of the district. Nguyen was responding to a question about what kind of commerce the neighborhood can realistically support, given its shrunken population since Katrina.
“I’ll be candid -- having Wal-Mart come to the neighborhood, it ain’t gonna happen,” she said in the interview. She added that other concepts, including a popular fast food restaurant call Raising Cane's, also were unlikely.
She went on: “This is just a reality, OK, and this is not putting anybody down: I think people in the Lower Nine like those greasy fried chicken” places, Nguyen said.
“I don’t like to have conversations just to sugarcoat people and say, ‘Yeah, we can get a Raising Cane’s,’ when you know very well that people here like those chicken, those fried chicken ... You can’t ask people to start up a business and not be able to make money.”
Roland Rubalcava went from creating dishes at his family’s market, Rubalcava’s Bakery in Placentia, to working at Michelin-starred Taco Maria, and even opening his own well-received restaurant in Costa Mesa two years ago. But it was a trip to Howlin’ Ray’s in LA’s Chinatown that convinced him to turn in his fine-dining tweezers for a deep fryer.
“I have adored fried chicken ever since I was a kid,” says Rubalcava. “The first time I had Howlin’ Ray’s, it was amazing. I remember eating their fried chicken and thinking, ‘Man, I can do something with this.’”
Rubalcava says he took advantage of being in charge of staff meals at Taco Maria to perfect his version of the hot chicken sandwich:“The staff were like my test dummies.”
Rubalcava’s hot chicken sandwich is American mestizaje at its finest — Southern in origin, Chicano in concept, Mexican in finish. His version starts with a sturdy bolillo –– sourced from El Molino de Oro in Orange –– toasted in chipotle aioli. Then comes the fried chicken breast (offered in varying spice levels: naked, Rojo and Rojo X), that Rubalcava double drenches in a salsa macha hot wash so that the crispy skin stays intact with every bite.
Rojo’s hot chicken sandwich with grilled nopal
“It’s all about texture,” says Rubalcava. “We fry it hard but then the coleslaw softens it up a little bit and makes it perfect.” Butter pickles enhance the sandwich, lending a hint of sweetness, along with American cheese singles, and a creamy escabeche-like coleslaw. A grilled nopal tops it off. “Nopal was very important to me because that’s what I wanted to differentiate us from everybody else,” says Rubalcava. “I thought about fried okra; it’s tangy and slimy in texture and reminds me a lot of nopal. So I thought, “‘Why can’t I use a grilled nopal in a Southern dish like fried chicken?’”
Rubalcava’s Mexican-style hot chicken sandwich shows heat peppered with cayenne and other spices, with just the right amount of balanced smokiness. Charred nopal adds a bright, vegetal bite while acting like a barrier to the macha seasoning’s fiery heat.
After three years of slangin’ fried birds with friend and partner, Jose Ponce, a former junior sous chef at Taco Maria, Rubalcava’s popular Orange County pop-up found a permanent restaurant space in Anaheim in late February. Then, coronavirus happened. Just two weeks after celebrating their opening, Rojo’s Hot Chicken closed completely, along with all other restaurants in Orange County, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “That’s when it felt like we lost our momentum,” Rubalcava said.
Like many other restaurants, Rubalcava says they’ve had to pare back, refocus efforts and rely almost exclusively on takeout. With the help of a Paycheck Protection Program loan, Rojo’s temporarily reopened its dining room in Los Tacos Amigos, a taquería owned by his cousin. However, OC restaurants were ordered to close their indoor dining rooms after a few weeks, which means it’s just been takeout and delivery since.
Crispy tripas tacosRojo’s [Official photo]
Though Mexican-style hot chicken is the main draw, the Anaheim native has an even more interesting spin on Southern-influenced Mexican food, using inspiration from a legendary now-closed Tijuana restaurant called Kentucky Fried Buches. A bit of a trademark infringement on the American fried chicken chain, KFB served deep-fried chicken necks in Tijuana’s red light district.
“I thought, ‘Why not do what they’ve done with buche with tripas,’” says Rubalcava. “Like Southern cooking, Mexican culture embraces offals.” Rubalcava uses the aforementioned salsa macha hot wash to make his tripas and serves them, as he likes to describe as “bien doradas” (really crunchy); the results are like a richer, meatier chicharrón. He garnishes the tacos with a relish of pickled onions, nopales, and cilantro.
“2020 has been rough, it feels like the world is slightly upside down right now but we have to adapt,” says Rubalcava looking out the window of his restaurant at Lincoln Boulevard. “There’s so much unknown with the industry. I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel, I’m just trying to make good food,” he says.
When Kuya Ja’s Lechon Belly reopened for takeout, the well-regarded Filipino restaurant outside of Rockville had to do away with its monthly kinamot meals. The communal feasts, made up of dishes meant to be eaten by hand across a spread of banana leaves, fostered a familiar atmosphere inside the restaurant, but they made no sense during the novel coronavirus pandemic. Instead, chef Javier Fernandez adapted to the COVID-19 crisis by offering a kinamot takeout special, “utensils optional,” as part of the local restaurant association’s revamped restaurant week. Preorders for the $60 option (for two) sold out well before they began running in late August.
Kuya Ja’s is trying to get back to normal after closing from the end of March through early June. During that time, Fernandez raised funds for out-of-work employees through GoFundMe, and the restaurant claimed a number of grants, including one from the Small Business Administration and an aid program for small restaurants in Maryland. A joint partnership between Core Cares and McCormick also helped provide groceries and essentials for staff during the time the storefront was closed. The restaurant sold T-shirts promoting its signature dish that read: LIVE LOVE LECHON.
After reopening, Kuya Ja’s was only able to rehire half of its staff. Because the tiny space has room for just 23 seats, Hernandez is continuing to serve takeout only.
Although it now arrives in a takeout container, the namesake pork belly at Kuya Ja’s continues to stand out in a region with an increasingly thriving Filipino food scene. Customers can get lechon kawali, deep-fried pork belly, at just about any of the DMV’s Filipino establishments. But Kuya Ja’s is the only place that serves this particular variety of trussed, slow-roasted pork belly, with flavor that comes from the lemongrass and garlic stuffed inside and a distinctly crispy skin that has been perfected through extensive trial and error.
Despite the loss in dine-in business, Fernandez feels that takeout is sustainable for the tiny shop. “A good majority of our business was takeout to begin with,” he says.
Filipinos know that Kuya Ja’s Lechon Belly is a family restaurant just by its name. “Kuya” is a Tagalog honorific for “big brother.” It’s what Fernandez’s younger cousins called him; Ja is short for Javier. Two years ago, when it came time to open his own restaurant, the name stuck.
Every week, the 23-seat Rockville business, which opened in 2018, draws customers from across the D.C. area, all hungry for its namesake speciality: the meticulously prepared lechon belly, which stands out even in an increasingly thriving Filipino food scene. The fast-casual outfit grew out of family traditions and influences that stretch from Cebu, the Philippine province where Fernandez grew up, to North Carolina, where his uncle sells whole roast pigs, to Maryland’s Montgomery County, where his parents moved three decades ago. And the final push came from his big sister, Stella Fernandez, who runs Gwenie’s Pastries on Nebel Street, a separate storefront that’s a four-minute drive away.
Gwenie’s Pastries makes braided loaves of sweet bread stuffed with ube (purple yam) and red bean paste.Rey Lopez/Eater D.C.
The bakery began as a home business.
Gwendolyn and Carl Fernandez came to the United States with their children, Stella and Javier, in the late ’80s. The couple found work with a Bethesda family. She was a housekeeper, and he was a personal chef. Gwendolyn, who goes by Gwenie, was still working full-time when she began making and distributing desserts as a hobby.
Stella remembers that Gwenie’s effectively took off as a business on July Fourth some 15 years ago. That’s the day Mom packaged some of her torta de Cebu (a muffin with a pound cake-like texture, sprinkled with sugar) and delivered it to Filipino grocery shops in Montgomery County. Gwenie knew all the Filipino shop owners and noticed the lack of fresh baked goods — sure, there were the occasional sweets shipped in from New Jersey or California, and an Oxon Hill bakery that made pan de sal, Filipino bread rolls. But there was something missing in local markets. Since she had the skills, why not do it herself?
Some years later, Stella came home from school in New York, where she was studying health care administration — “typical Filipino to become a nurse,” Stella says. She got a job at the National Institutes of Health, but at the same time was learning everything her mother knew about baking. Stella left NIH in 2010 and has been baking full-time ever since.
There was no pressure from her mother to join the baking operation, Stella assures. “Even when I decided,” Stella says, “she asked me, ‘Are you sure?’”
Javier “Ja” Fernandez handles a wok full of pancit at Kuya Ja’s back in MarchRey Lopez/Eater D.C.
Stella Fernandez left a career in nursing to run Gwenie’s Pastries, her family’s Filipino bakery in RockvilleRey Lopez/Eater D.C.
Gwendolyn “Gwenie” Fernandez built a baking business by selling pastries to Filipino grocery stores in Montgomery County, Maryland.Rey Lopez/Eater D.C.
Puto, sweet steamed rice cakes, from Gwenie’s Pastries take their bright color from ube (purple yam).Rey Lopez/Eater D.C.
The venture began as Gwenie’s Desserts. They pass down old family recipes, like for flan or biko (a rice-based sweet with coconut milk and brown sugar), which came from Gwenie’s grandmother, and new recipes she developed herself, like kutsinta, a steamed rice cake, and ube halaya, made from boiled and mashed purple yam. These dishes were developed over years of experimentation.
“If it’s not good enough, she won’t sell it,” Stella says.
When asked in February if Gwenie’s had plans to make ensaymada — cheesy, buttery rolls that involve a complicated, all-day process — Stella said that “it hasn’t been perfected yet.” She recently said that Gwenie had finally developed a recipe that “we all agreed tasted the best out of all the tries over the years.” They have yet to try a large-scale production yet, but stay tuned.
Gwenie’s began distributing straight out of the family’s basement to shops in Montgomery County, but Stella saw more potential; there were Filipino groceries all over the DMV that could use fresh pastries. So Stella helped Mom expand the business, taking it out of the house and eventually finding an old office space in Rockville to convert into a kitchen.
Meanwhile, Stella explains, her brother was busy with his own emerging culinary career. “He was also newly married and working two eight-hour jobs at two different restaurants. I barely saw him.”
Javier Fernandez got his culinary training at Gaithersburg’s L’Academie de Cuisine, which closed in 2017 after more than four decades as one of America’s top cooking schools. Ja worked at Georgetown’s La Chaumiere (as did groundbreaking Bad Saint chef Tom Cunanan) and Michel Richard’s Michel in Tysons Corner before he even started cooking Filipino food in earnest. He began to cook the cuisine because he was inspired by his father.
Fernandez went to college with an entirely different career track in mind, studying business at Johnson & Wales and economics at University of Maryland Baltimore County. But then, with the encouragement of his mother, he went to culinary school, and his early years in the food industry were primarily spent in French cuisine.
Things changed around 10 years ago, when Fernandez was still immersed in French cooking. One night his father, out of the blue, made lechon belly for a party at home. It was Kuya Ja’s equivalent of Proust’s madeleine: It reminded him of his childhood, ultimately driving him to start the busy operation he runs today.
It also happens that around 2009, Anthony Bourdain visited the Philippines for the first time. The late chef and television personality filmed an episode of No Reservations in Cebu in search of lechon, a dish which he declared was “the best pig ever.”
What makes a great lechon belly? It’s all in the skin. When it’s done right, Fernandez says, “It’s like candy.” At a Filipino party, when somebody roasts a whole pig, the skin is the first thing to go. Fernandez says he’s been to Filipino parties where the hosts roast a whole pig, and if the texture is off, everyone will be sure to complain.
Javier Fernandez says that roasted pork skin is “like candy” when it’s prepared properly.Rey Lopez/Eater D.C.
Fernandez learned how to roast whole pigs from Marshall Cruz, his uncle in North Carolina. Cruz had traveled to Cebu, talked to somebody who made lechon for a living, and paid him to share his secrets. The chef spent a year and a half perfecting his own process, which involves finding the right cuts of meat because he loses a lot of the fat in the process. Often, 30 percent of the weight will render out.
That fatty skin doesn’t go to waste. Fernandez makes some of it into chicharrón that adds texture to sisig, which traditionally gets its crunch from parts of a pig’s head chopped up and served on a sizzling platter. Since that doesn’t really work for a fast-casual operation, the crunch in Fernandez’s sisig comes from the chicharrón.
The chef goes back to Cebu every year “to refresh my palate and just learn as much as I can about the new flavors going on in the Philippines.” But while there are great chefs in the big cities, Fernandez says, “the techniques weren’t really there.” That’s where Ja’s culinary training comes in. “That definitely helped when I started cooking Filipino food because it’s just very more modernized. If you know how to cook French food, you can cook pretty much almost anything.”
How does this translate to a successful restaurant? “My brother had a vision,” Stella says. And while Filipino fine dining is having its moment today, that vision emerged from an aspect of Filipino dining that has always been available in the DMV: buffet-style steam tables known as turo-turos.
You can find the turo-turos — it means “point point” in Tagalog — in places like Manila Mart (5023 Garrett Avenue, Beltsville), a grocery store that also serves Filipino favorites buffet-style. “To this day I still deliver to these stores, and I’ll eat at these places and it’s not bad,” Stella says. But Javier imagined a Filipino restaurant that “wasn’t just for Filipinos.”
Javier Fernandez rolls lumpia, skinny Filipino egg rolls, stuffed with shrimp and porkRey Lopez/Eater D.C.
Javier knew the buffets weren’t how to get Filipino cuisine to a broader audience. “You put it in a steamer, a warmer all day. ... It doesn’t look very appetizing if that’s your first time eating Filipino food.”
Soon after Gwenie’s opened a storefront in Rockville, Javier started to talk to her about holding pop-ups where he’d introduce Montgomery County to his lechon belly. David Hagedorn of Bethesda Magazinehelped put them on the map, and word of mouth spread through the Filipino community and beyond. Social media was a big part of that; if you were on Facebook and Instagram at the time, pictures of that pork and crispy skin made it clear to area Filipinos and adventurous foodies that there was a new pig in town.
Javier thought, correctly, that lechon would be fairly easy to market, especially for meat lovers.
“It’s similar to a lot of cooking,” he says, connecting lechon to Spanish, Cuban, and Caribbean cuisines, as well as Italian. “It’s basically a porchetta with different seasonings and different aromatics.”
Kuya Ja’s has recently expanded the takeout menu to include lechon manok, his version of rotisserie chicken, which may be an even more apt tribute to the homeland than the pork belly. “If you’ve ever been in the Philippines or Cebu,” he explains, “there’s a whole lot more lechon manok restaurants then pork belly — it’s everywhere.”
Although a lot of Yelp reviews give Kuya Ja’s props for authenticity, the chef doesn’t make any such claims. With more than 7,000 islands in the Philippines and countless regional variations, “I don’t try to do the whole cuisine at once. Everybody thinks their dishes or their version is more traditional. I’m like, you cannot tell me what traditional Filipino food is.
“I cook Maryland Filipino food, my style.”
The signature pancit bowl from Kuya Ja’s mixes rice noodles with shrimp, chicken, longganisa sausage, egg, and vegetables.Rey Lopez/Eater D.C.
Boneless chicken thigh adobo with sweet soy, poached egg, vegetables, and white rice is a dish that lends itself to takeout.Rey Lopez/Eater D.C.
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